Contact: Nicole Rosen 202-309-5724 . Washington, D.C. (December 13, 2022): The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law calls on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to correct an important new report that understates anti-Semitic hate crimes. Today, the FBI released hate crime data which indicates, erroneously, that hate crimes against Jews decreased last year. The reason for this error appears to be that critical law enforcement agencies’ data was not included. . Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus commented, “At a time of record anti-Semitic hate crimes, it is appalling that the FBI’s data-gathering has been so badly botched. The 2021 hate crimes data is essentially useless. The problem is so bad that record-high levels of anti-Semitism appear in the official data as actual declines, because major jurisdictions didn’t formally report it. This massive failure has undermined the purposes of hate crimes data precisely when we most need the data. If the FBI doesn’t quickly correct this problem, congressional committees will need to ask some serious questions.” . In contrast to the FBI’s previously authoritative data, other monitors have uniformly reported substantial increases in anti-Semitic hate crimes last year. In 2021, for example, the Anti-Defamation League received more reports of anti-Semitic incidents than in any other year on record. Other experts found increases in all hate crimes from 2020 to 2021, including a 59% increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes. Because of a significant decrease in local law enforcement reporting of crime data, however, federal data wrongly indicates that there were fewer anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2021 than in 2020. . Even the FBI’s incomplete 2021 data indicates that hate crimes perpetrators chose their victims because they believed the victims were Jewish more often than any other religious group, averaging dozens of anti-Semitic hate crimes per month, and that 2021 was the third-worst year for hate crimes in America generally in the past decade. This however significantly understates the prevalence of hate crimes in America in 2021, and particularly (but not exclusively) anti-Semitic hate crimes. . FBI reports rely on data which is voluntarily provided by local law enforcement agencies. For 2020, the FBI reported that 15,138 agencies provided data. For 2021, this number plummeted to 11,883 agencies – more than 20% lower. . Worse, the agencies that stopped providing data to the FBI in 2021 have jurisdiction over areas where most American Jews live. California, Florida, New Jersey, and New York have the four largest Jewish populations of any state. They also had four of the largest decreases in reporting. New York City, for instance, reported 198 anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2021 in its own public statistics – more than in all of New York State in 2020 – but none of those 198 incidents are included in this year’s federal reporting. Los Angeles is also entirely absent from the federal data, but Los Angeles County also reported an increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes from 2020 to 2021. . During an epidemic of anti-Semitism and other forms of violent hate, Americans need accurate information. The FBI must take whatever measures are necessary to correct this misleading report. If the data is wrong because the FBI allowed data to be submitted only through its National Incident-Based Reporting System, it must allow law enforcement agencies to submit correct data in other ways, as it has in the past, and publish corrected results. Hate crimes are too dangerous to let such a materially inaccurate report stand. . The Louis D. Brandeis Center is an independent, nonprofit organization established to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all. The Brandeis Center conducts research, education, and advocacy to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses. It is not affiliated with the Massachusetts university, the Kentucky law school, or any of the other institutions that share the name and honor the memory of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice.